Dutch defense minister warns of Chinese spying threat

China is stepping up espionage on Dutch semiconductors, the Netherlands' Defense Minister Ruben Brekelmans said on Saturday.

"The semiconductor industry, which we are technologically leading, ... to get that intellectual property — that's interesting to China," Brekelmans told Reuters on Saturday at the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore.

Dutch intelligence services have previously warned of Chinese spying on the semiconductor, aerospace and maritime industries. Asked about the threat, Brekelmans said: "It's continuing. In our newest intelligence reports, our intelligence agency said that the biggest cyber threat is coming from China."

"That was the case last year, but that's still the case. So we only see this intensifying," Brekelmans said.

Brekelmans also expressed concern over Europe’s dependence on China for critical raw materials. China is "using their economic position for geopolitical purposes and also to pressure us," the minister said.

"Both on the European Union level, but also on the national level, we need to make bigger steps in order to reduce those dependencies," Brekelmans said.

Swedish Deputy Prime Minister Ebba Busch raised the point at the EU Competitiveness Council earlier this month, warning: “The dependency on Russian gas will seem like a warm, sunny day compared to the dependencies on the raw material sector."